Ellen Weintraub, a Democratic commissioner and chair on the Federal Election Commission, revealed Thursday night that President Donald Trump fired her last week. Weintraub, an outspoken Trump critic whose political bias and routine disparagement of Trump have long sparked controversy, suggested she won’t leave her post.
Weintraub, who has served on the nation’s civil campaign finance regulator since 2002 and previously worked at the Democratic-aligned firm Perkins Coie, shared an image of a Jan. 31 letter she claimed was from Trump, which stated, “You are hereby removed as a Member of the Federal Election Commission, effective immediately. Thank you for your service on the Commission.”
Weintraub noted, “Received a letter from POTUS today purporting to remove me as Commissioner & Chair of FEC. There’s a legal way to replace FEC commissioners — this isn’t it.”
Weintraub’s six-year term — a term limit established by the Federal Election Campaign Act — expired nearly two decades ago, back when George W. Bush was still president. However, commissioners can continue in a holdover status. Evidently, the Democratic commissioner from New York wants to keep holding on.
“I’ve been lucky to serve the American people & stir up some good trouble along the way,” continued the Democratic commissioner, who previously accused Trump of damaging American democracy and questioned the legitimacy of the Electoral College. “That’s not changing anytime soon.”
It appears that in order to can a commissioner, the president must first nominate a replacement, then have him confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Accordingly, Weintraub can continue to haunt the commission until her replacement is named and approved.
Former Republican FEC commissioner Caroline Hunter noted in a 2019 op-ed that Weintraub’s partisan hackery was “harming the legitimacy of the institution she purports to serve.”
“Commissioners are meant to be independent and neutral arbiters of campaign finance law. Yet Weintraub’s statements indicate that she has prematurely judged matters that could come before the FEC, and that she radically rejects any legal perspective other than her own,” continued Hunter.
“Not only that, she risks misleading the public about what the FEC does and what campaign finance law really says.”
Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), the Biden-pardoned chairman of the Jan. 6 committee, was among the Democrats who had a conniption upon learning that Trump was kicking Weintraub to the curb.
Thompson stated, “Donald Trump is methodically dismantling our democracy. He is firing every person with experience, expertise, character, and commitment to the Constitution in order to replace them with mindless yes-men who will give Donald Trump and Elon Musk carte blanche to break the law and rip off the American people.”
